Robert Skinner’s hilarious and poignant collection of essays / memoir / short stories I’D RATHER NOT (Black Inc 2023) is a wonderfully witty and self-deprecating glimpse into the author’s life as he continues his quest for the next best thing or even something a little better; ‘Things begin badly and then, surprisingly, get slightly worse.’
In this assembly of stories with titles such as Cinderella Pays the Rent, House Party, I Fought the Law, Lessons from Camels, The Art of Tour Guiding, and the Epilogue The Dying Art of Hitchhiking, Skinner takes the reader with him through early retirement at 28 (followed by a swift visit to the Dole Office); publishing a short-story literary magazine whilst living homeless in a park; working in a bookshop; coping with pandemic lockdowns; and showing guileless tourists around ‘the real Australia’.
His writing will appeal to anyone who has ever entered a Kafkaesque conversation with a Centrelink Manager; been forced to attend a costume party; spent so much time fooling around on a stopover that you miss your next flight and become hopelessly embroiled in a no visa / no ticket nightmare (‘At immigration, under ‘primary reason for visiting Singapore’, I wrote ‘ Idiot’’); become incandescent with rage when confronted with the stupidity and irony of Robodebt or spent so much time waiting by the side of the road with your thumb out that it would have been quicker to walk.
Brilliant one-line zingers abound, such as: ‘The main problem with my living arrangements was that I hadn’t made any’ or ‘For reasons that are still unclear to me, I agreed to go on a ten-day camel trek with my parents.’ Skinner is a bright talent with a Sedaris-like ability to distil both banal and extraordinary scenarios into tight, quick vignettes that are easy to read, entertaining, closely observant of human nature and incredibly funny. If you had to be marooned on a desert island with somebody, he seems like the kind of guy that would make it not only bearable but instructive, amusing and droll. A really great read.